It Seemed that the Issue of the Reunification of Karabakh with Armenia Could Be Solved in a Few Days

• 02.28.2018, 17:19
•  Armenia,  NKR

The beginning of February of 1988 was a fatal time for the Armenians of Artsakh. February 13, perhaps, was the starting point of the Karabakh national liberation movement... The decision was clear, the desire was one: this piece of the historical homeland was to join Armenia.

The protests with this demand were held in different regions of Armenia, in Yerevan, Stepanakert, in the regions of Artsakh. 

Since then, 30 years have passed. This means that the children born in 1988 are already 30... They are not just young people, but already self-determined men and women, the same age as the Karabakh Movement...

What do they know about the events that took place 30 years ago, today's 30-year-olds? How do they perceive what happened in the year of their birth?

Rozi Mikayelyan, 30, said in an interview to ''Armedia'' IAA "I remember very little, or rather, I do not remember anything, but since my family members were actively involved in the Movement, their stories were firmly entrenched in my memory , and sometimes it seems to me that I personally took part in certain events connected with the Karabakh Movement. I remember it was often said that my uncle, being still quite young, realized the seriousness of the situation and mobilized his friends for the subsequent participation in the war. Later we learned that he was already at the front, and when I went to school, then to university, and got to know the long history of the Armenian people, I clearly realized: there cannot be two opinions on this issue: Artsakh is Armenia."

The founder of the gallery "Sargis Muradyan" Zaruhi Muradyan, is twice as old as the Karabakh Movement, and remembers a lot of its start: "When they ask me what I remember about the beginning of the Artsakh Movement 30 years ago, the feelings of love, brotherhood, mutual help and commitment to goals come to my mind. Those days it seemed that the issue of the reunification of Karabakh with Armenia could be resolved in a few days. Our whole family was an active participant of the Artsakh Movement: My Father, a well-known folk artist Sarkis Muradyan, was one of the few deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR, who from the very first day stood with his people, and repeatedly raised the issue of Karabakh in the Supreme Council.

The first week, starting from February 20 until the beginning of the Sumgait events (February 26-28 - Ed.) was a week of hopes, fulfillment of the desire of our people. On February 22, shops and factories began to announce strikes and gather at the Opera Square: the city center was paralyzed. At night people went out to the processions, urging everyone to join the Movement; the slogans "Karabakh" and "Miatsum" ("reunification") were mostly heard. We had a video camera, and from the 22nd of February I began to shoot everything that happened on the square. In addition to speeches and appeals to the government and central authorities in Moscow, patriotic songs and poems were heard. To this, the Azerbaijanis answered with the massacre in Sumgait ... But this did not break us: the movement gained strength, all this lasted for several years. Then the war began, the result of all this was an independent Armenia with its inseparable part… Artsakh"

Time itself is not only a philosophical category, it is a movement that has only one dimension: from the past to the future. The struggle for freedom is also a movement. And it arose, just like the Karabakh Movement, much earlier than February 1988...